970 Extreme4 Assistance - Boot Issues

[Mike Dankworth]

Looking for some assitance

Configuration
970 extreme4 board (bios P1.60.15A)
Phenom II X4 965
CPU fan? No idea, selected the upgrade my CPU fan option at time of purchase
Gskill Ripsaw 4g DDR3 1600
Gigabyte GeForce 430 3G
Seagate Sata 1T drive
Lite on Sata CDR/DVR
Antec 500W PS
XP 32bit
typical mouse / keyboard

Issue
Just recieved and installed / all hardware purchased new. Loaded xpsp1 and proceeded to load the drivers, motherboard followed by video. Recieved error when loading "amd cpu" driver from the board cd. Do not recall if it stated "requires or suggests" sp2. Downloaded both SP2 &3 with the intention of installing sp2 then 3. Somewhere in the process of installing SP2 the system blue screened with the message "system stoppped to prevent damage to your pc" I do not recall the exact message, did notice "ntfs" on the screen prior to the system shutting down. Attempting to boot the system after shutdown resulted in the fans (cpu, case and ps) spinning up and powering off within 10 seconds. I disconnected all sata devices, attempted a second boot with the same result. Reseated video, cpu, memory, same result on next boot attempt. PC powers off priot to post display or any error messages.
Anyone aware of where to begint to troubleshoot this? Any help is much appreciated.

[electric bill]

Re: 970 Extreme4 Assistance - Boot Issues

Try with just 1 stick of RAM.

Bill

[Mike Dankworth]

Re: 970 Extreme4 Assistance - Boot Issues

Thanks for the reply Bill.
Just 1 4gb stick installed, first slot. No beep codes when trying to boot without memory or video. Error codes seem to either be 19 or 60 at time of power loss. I think I know the ultimate answer to this, just trying to avoid the RMA process. Was hoping someone would say, "Oh yeah that happened to me" Close one eye, plug the power in using your left index finger and the cmos will reset.

[Bluemeanie]

Re: 970 Extreme4 Assistance - Boot Issues

Is the CPU fan running?

[Mike Dankworth]

Re: 970 Extreme4 Assistance - Boot Issues

cpu fan spins up, but shuts down within a few second, 10'ish.

Powering up the board results in the following.
Case fans, cpu fan spin up. Everyting powers off after 10 seconds. LED display may show 19 when powered off or it may show 60, results are random. Unit will not power on again until the power supply is physically unplugged and plugged back in. Same results.
I have attempted to boot with no video / ram installed, same result. Assumed I should get a beep code for the ram being out. Also removed all power to the board, removed the cmos battery (saw this posted on another board) with no luck.
Just seems odd, the events leading up to this seemed to be more of a software issue. Everything ran smooth for the first 2 /3 hrs of use. Just crashed in the middle of installing sp2, powered off and nothing since.

Adding to my original post, I left out a small detail. I originally thought this would simply be a bad stick of ram or corrupt driver ending in a reload. Never imagined the board would dead and / or not boot.
When installing SP2, I was prompted in the middle of the installation to insert my windows xp disk. I dont recall the exact message, one of those tht you typically ok, reboot and reload deals. Basically it mentioned a critical file was mising or corrupt, original disk needed to replace files. I cancled the SP2 load and inserted the original sp1 disk. I hit the ok button to seak / replace the files. This is when the blue screen hit. I originally thought one of two things, install all service packs prior to loading the board drivers, bad ram or bad drive. I was planning to reboot, wipe and try again but was met with no boot / power.
I had a gigabyte board do somthing similar to this. End result was due to "unsupported ram" causing the bios to corrupt. Explination from Gigabyte. In that situation the system ran fine (days, weeks at a time) but would randomly shut down, prompt me to rebuild the bios and everything was back up and running. Seemed to be not the same issue but similar when it first occured. This is my first ARock board, not familiar with them at all, have read some posts and simply wanted to try one. hope to have better luck than this in the future.